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Wednesday, 30 December 2015

Astonishing as it seems now, Lucy "Girl Next Door" Davis was
considered something of a sex symbol in the UK in 2004, thanks to her role as
the token hot girl in Ricky Gervais's TV series The Office. This explains
why she is plastered in make-up and simpers through every scene in Shaun of the Dead. In an eerily prescient taste of Davis's subsequent career, she plays a failed actress in Shaun.

It's a nice touch when Davis' character uses
her acting skills to coach the others in an undead masterclass so they can walk
through a zombie crowd undetected.

There's really only one good joke in Shaun:
that no one notices the increasing number of zombies that have arrived
in town since they are indistinguishable from the braindead humans who already
live there, working their nine-to-fives for the Man.

Review continues below...

Inspire your baby with the Visual Baby series of picture ebooks. Original patterns and art designed for young eyes. Try them today by clicking the covers below.

"It's the only thing that stops her crying" Katie Alison

"All three of my children love this book" Janice Peterson

"Moons, trees, leaves... fabulous!" Linda Matson

Simon Pegg (co-writer) and Nick Frost play the
adorable man-child leads. Personally,
I’d like to see every onscreen man-child burned alive. As with so many man-child films, Shaun is dressed up as a rite of
passage. Shaun (played by Pegg)'s
girlfriend has dumped him because he's a man-child. He's got to become a real man if he wants to
keep her. But he reeeeely reeeeely
doesn't want to give up his no-responsibility job and his computer games and
his nightly drinking at the local pub.
It's another nice touch to equate the painful wrench between the states
of man-childhood and adulthood with a zombie invasion. But the film never believes that the
transition is worth making. True, Shaun
mans up a little bit to take control of the zombies, but it's clear at the end
that he never stopped believing that the man-child way was best. It's less a rite of passage than a rite of
twat-age.

Every student in their cups dreams of
writing a screenplay full of their drunken and stoned witticisms. Thankfully most are too drunk or stoned to
complete a script and any rogue scripts that do make it into the world are
quickly squashed by editors. Not so with
Shaun of the Dead.

Most people will react to this film in the
same way that they'd react to a group of drunken students in the pub – either
to roll their eyes or to reach for the baseball bats, depending on their
temperament.

This is part of a series of film reviews where I give my comments on IMDB Top 250 films as a writer. The idea is that over time these posts will build into a wide-ranging writing resource.
For more details about the approach I've taken, including some important points about its strengths and weaknesses (I make no claims about my abilities as a film critic or even the accuracy of my comments... but I do stand by the value of a writer's notes on interesting films), see my introductory post here.

Monday, 21 December 2015

It seems like a good time to rewatch the
original 1977 Star Wars and post my
review. 'I don't like the black one,'
said my young daughter as she passed through the room. Thankfully this was not early onset racism
(the original Star Wars trilogy not
being overly blessed with black characters, at least not to look at) but Uncle
Darth doing his evil work.

The thing that struck
me about the film on this watch was that not a lot happens – it's quite a
tightly constructed plot focused on the emergence of the Death Star and its
destruction – but it's clear that the wider world of the films is already
known. It's a neat writing trick to pull
off: leaving a lot unsaid but having it there in the background without the
need for endless exposition. And when
you've got a trilogy to play with, there's plenty of time for all that to come
out.

It's a well put
together film, with a good set, strong characters, and well-imagined features
(e.g. the light sabres, Princess Leia's hair, Vader's mask). Darth Vader (David Prowse / James Earl Jones)
with his striking look and walk and his breathing and his mysterious history
with the Jedi is another nicely unexplained aspect of the film.

Review continues below...

Inspire your baby with the Visual Baby series of picture ebooks. Original patterns and art designed for young eyes. Try them today by clicking the covers below.

"It's the only thing that stops her crying" Katie Alison

"All three of my children love this book" Janice Peterson

"Moons, trees, leaves... fabulous!" Linda Matson

Han Solo (Harrison
Ford)'s character is summed up by his line 'No reward is worth this!'

And most of the
characters are defined by economical and memorable lines:

Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi's fight with Darth Vader anticipates similar standoffs in the later films and lures the guards
away from the Millennium Falcon. It also conveniently gets rid of the old guy
before the final action, and allows a more personal manifestation of the Force
as he whispers in Luke's ear (disturbingly like a mental illness).

The garbage compressor scene is a classic and
gives a touch of humour when C3PO thinks their relieved whooping is their
death cries.

Of course, the Robots have as much personality
as anyone else. C3PO is fussy but loyal,
a kind of metal Luke. R2D2 only beeps
but is resilient and bloody minded and carries the cool hologram message. He also seems to hold back information (the
full message) in order to get his way. R2D2 is robot Han.

There are so many unforgettable scenes. The
trench attack at the end, the sight of the rebel fighters taking off from the
base to attack. Luke observes a classic
double subset and the tall lookout posts and jungle landscape are great. The seedy spaceport with its hostile and
bizarre aliens is another iconic scene.
It's where we first meet Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), (surprisingly lean
when I re-watched it).

I scored it 7 last time I watched it but I enjoyed it
so much this time around I'm going to give it a promotion.Personal Score: 8/10Follow @MichaelHardach

This is part of a series of film reviews where I give my comments on IMDB Top 250 films as a writer. The idea is that over time these posts will build into a wide-ranging writing resource.
For more details about the approach I've taken, including some important points about its strengths and weaknesses (I make no claims about my abilities as a film critic or even the accuracy of my comments... but I do stand by the value of a writer's notes on interesting films), see my introductory post here.

Thursday, 17 December 2015

Woody Allen begs us to identify the characters
he plays in films such as Manhattan and
Annie Hall with himself. The characters have relationships with
actresses that Allen has had relationships with in real life (Mia Farrow, Diane
Keaton), they express admiration for things Allen is known to love such as the
films of Fellini and Bergman, and there are other striking relationship
parallels such as in Manhattan, the
42 year old Isaac (played by Allen)'s relationship with 17 year old Jill
(Mariel Hemingway) which seems to echo Allen's real-life relationship with 17
year old Stacey Nelkin.WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERSFollow @MichaelHardach

Much is made of the age gap and illegality of
the relationship in Manhattan. At one point it is explained in psychoanalytical
terms as resulting from Isaac's ex-wife leaving him for another woman, making
him look for a young girl rather than form a relationship with an adult equal.

Review continues below...

Inspire your baby with the Visual Baby series of picture ebooks. Original patterns and art designed for young eyes. Try them today by clicking the covers below.

"It's the only thing that stops her crying" Katie Alison

"All three of my children love this book" Janice Peterson

"Moons, trees, leaves... fabulous!" Linda Matson

While this is an interesting motivation for many age gap relationships, I think there is a much simpler explanation for this one: the Isaac character is a control freak who bullies woman and can do it more easily with a young girl.Isaac accuses the Diane Keaton character (Mary) of being too cerebral several times, before going on to list Flaubert's novel "Sentimental Education" as one of the reasons it's worth staying alive for. What a fucker.When we make the connection from Isaac to Allen
that we're begged to make, this film becomes a lot more interesting. Not on its own terms (adorable Isaac falls in
love with one girl after another and just doesn't know what to do) but rather
as an inadvertently revealing portrait of a psychopathic, abusing male, able to
act with impunity by bending the laws of the land just enough that he can get
away with his damaging and deviant behaviour.
Nice guy. Of course, this is just a fictional character so it seems odd that Allen would flirt with the similarities between Isaac and himself.Personal Score: 5/10Follow @MichaelHardach

This is part of a series of film reviews where I give my comments on IMDB Top 250 films as a writer. The idea is that over time these posts will build into a wide-ranging writing resource.
For more details about the approach I've taken, including some important points about its strengths and weaknesses (I make no claims about my abilities as a film critic or even the accuracy of my comments... but I do stand by the value of a writer's notes on interesting films), see my introductory post here.

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About Me

I am a writer, artist and musician living in the UK. I share my thoughts on all things writing at michaelhardach.blogspot.com. This blog covers film reviews, creative writing tips, tutorials and support for writers.